Bristol Borough opens new school this school year

For 12 years, Bristol Borough music teacher Doreen McVan "taught music from a cart."

Space was so limited at the Warren Snyder-John Girotti Elementary School that McVan's headquarters was a hallway cubicle. Her supplies and books were kept on four carts that traveled with her from room to room as she taught.

But the opening of school today gives McVan a reason to sing out in celebration: She has her own room in the district's new, $35 million elementary/middle school building.

"I'm so excited," McVan said. "It's like after 12 years of pack-ratting, I finally have a home."

McVan and her colleagues have moved into a two-story, 128,000-square-foot school, and have marveled at the equipment and furniture, cheery surroundings, and additional space.

Students will no longer have to eat lunch, take gym, and perform during assemblies in the same multipurpose room. The school is a fresh learning environment, School Board President David Chichilitti said, and even has some design elements that reflect the architectural character of Bristol Borough houses.

The building isn't the only change. The district has altered its grade alignment as well.

The former prekindergarten-to-sixth-grade school is adding grades seven and eight, becoming the only public school in the county with that alignment, said Michael Masko, assistant executive director of the Bucks County Intermediate Unit.

Middle school students who had been housed in a separate wing of what was the middle/senior high school have moved to the second floor of the new elementary/middle school. The vacated wing of the high school is being used as a ninth-grade academy.

The moves reflect district officials' belief in research that middle school-age students will be better served by shifting them to a prekindergarten-to-eighth-grade model, Superintendent Broadus Davis said. The elementary environment will better enable faculty to prepare the students to handle the transition to high school, Davis said.

"I don't think you'll find anybody who would say across the board it should be one way," said Masko, who toured the new building during an open house in late August. "Bristol looked at the needs of their community and how they learn best, and this is what works for them."

The district has 1,200 students, and 900 will attend the new school. Unlike other parts of the county, Bristol has no room to grow, and enrollment is expected to remain the same over the next five to 10 years, said John D'Angelo, vice president of the school board.

The battle to build a new elementary school or renovate it was long. In 1994, a proposed $7.9 million upgrade was rejected amid taxpayer concerns. Since then, there had been fits and starts, with the district continuing to repair the building when needed.

The school was built in the 1950s over a canal, and had begun to sink. Some bathrooms had to be closed because the floor was crushing the pipes. Water leaked into 15-year-old trailers. Roofs had to be repaired.

"The building was in such bad shape that nobody took pride in it anymore," principal Rosemary Parmigiani said.

In 2005, the decision was made to build a new school.

"No matter what, there will always be people on both sides of the fence, because a school is such an investment," said Rachel Kelley, president of the elementary school PTA. "But when you think of what the community as a whole has to gain, I think a new school is priceless."

The building was built on an athletic field next to the old school. When the old structure is demolished, new athletic fields will be put on that site. In the meantime, students will practice in the gym or at the high school.

Inside the new building as well, the school reflects the community that surrounds it. Many of the teachers were born and raised in the borough, and returned to work in the schools.

Some, such as Marijean Vlassenko, attended Snyder-Girotti. Some, such as husband-and-wife teachers Carla and David Tyrell, attended St. Ann Catholic School, a borough school that closed in June. Some, such as McVan, now work down the hall from colleagues who years ago were their students.

Carla Tyrell, who teaches across the hall from her husband, called the opening of the building bittersweet.

"It's exciting, even though we had a lot of memories in that old building," she said. "But the kids deserve this - to have as nice a school as anybody else."